by David Leon Moore, USA TODAY Sports

by David Leon Moore, USA TODAY Sports

LOS ANGELES -- There are nights when Sue Falsone walks onto the field at Dodger Stadium and girls in the stands shout at her and wave. They later tell Falsone they want to grow up and be just like her, and that gives her a warm feeling that never gets old.

"It's really, really cool," she says.

And there are nights when Falsone walks out of Dodger Stadium at midnight, after another Los Angeles Dodger player has pulled a hamstring -- part of a mysterious, frustrating string of leg injuries the team has suffered this season. That's when she feels like she is persevering more than pioneering.

Falsone, 39, is doing both. In her second season as the Dodgers' trainer, she is still the first and only female head trainer of a major professional sports team.

She is a role model and takes that seriously.

"I've heard from numerous young women who say, 'I want to have a job like yours. I never thought I could do that, and now I can,' " says Falsone, who is single and lives two blocks from the ocean in Hermosa Beach, Calif., southwest of Los Angeles.

She also knows there are Dodger fans out there tweeting and blogging that she should be fired for all the injuries. It's hurtful, but she takes it in stride and hasn't lost her sense of humor.

"I made one comment in a story that we're constantly talking to experts in the field to try to improve, and someone on Twitter said, 'Well then, we don't want you. We want the expert,' " Falsone says, laughing.

There are also comments from others, mostly anonymously on the Internet, along the lines that a woman doesn't belong in the dugout or the clubhouse. She doesn't laugh these off. She mostly avoids them.

"People are pretty courageous when they can hide behind an anonymous name," Falsone says. "I know I get a lot of flak, but I learned very, very quickly not to read the reader comments below a story that mentions me. That's where a lot of that stuff goes. It's unfortunate."

Falsone, who grew up outside of Buffalo, previously worked at Athletes' Performance, a training center in Phoenix. Dodgers outfielder Andre Ethier, who lives in Chandler, Ariz., had frequently rehabbed injuries with Falsone at that facility.

But it was different, he says, when she was hired by the Dodgers.

"At first, some of us didn't know how to handle it," Ethier says. "I mean, having her in the clubhouse, behind closed doors, I didn't know if we should be tiptoeing around certain things."

Falsone laughs at that. "They've definitely not tiptoed," she says.

But Ethier says they have become very comfortable having her around, and that her outgoing personality and sensitivity toward injured players are big reasons for that.

"Sometimes it's a tough balance between being pushy and when to ease back a little," Ethier says. "When guys are on the disabled list, they're not in a good mood. She knows when to back off."

Clubhouse a 'non-issue'

Falsone always was drawn to orthopedic medicine, physical therapy and athletics and has a Bachelor's degree in physical therapy from Daemen College in Amherst, N.Y., and a Master's in human movement science, with a concentration in sports medicine, from North Carolina.

But she never thought she would end up with a professional team.

"I didn't consciously aspire to it at all," Falsone said. "I never thought I'd be fulltime with a team. It just wasn't really on my radar. But here I am and loving what I'm doing."

Falsone says people are naturally curious about a woman working in such a male-dominated environment, especially in the inner sanctum of the team's clubhouse, where players are sometimes nude and the language is often salty.

"I take the approach that I'm in their environment," she says. "I don't expect 25 players and 10 coaches to change the way they act because I'm around. If they're having a conversation that I don't particularly want to hear, I just remove myself from the conversation or remove myself from the room. I'm in their environment. They're not in mine.

"The guys just aren't walking around naked all the time. I don't hang out in the clubhouse where their bathrooms are and where they shower. I'm not saying I don't go in the clubhouse. I may be in there, then out of there quickly. But I don't hang out there. And they don't come out of the shower into the training room nude, because they know that's where I am. It's really been a non-issue."

Stan Conte, the Dodgers' vice president of medical services, hired Falsone before last season when he was promoted from trainer. When Falsone's hiring produced a flurry of stories about its historic nature, he was somewhat miffed.

"These stories bother me," he says. "People should be judged on what they do and how good they are at doing it, not whether they're short or tall, or male or female. We judge ourselves on how many injuries we have."

Rebounding from injuries

For that reason, the 2013 season has been a rollercoaster.

The first half was a disaster, in large part due to the series of hamstring injuries that sidelined stars Hanley Ramirez, Matt Kemp and Carl Crawford and produced a revolving door from the lineup to the disabled list. The injuries cratered the Dodgers' lineup and were a big factor in the team resting in last place with a 30-42 record on June 21.

The training staff was taking a beating in the blogosphere.

"I think we all had questions at that point," Dodgers manager Don Mattingly says. "I'm sure Sue was the first one saying, 'What are we missing? Are we doing something wrong? Are we doing too much of something and not enough of another? Why are we having all these leg injuries?' "

He's right. Falsone was questioning everything.

"We take it all very personally," she says. "It's our job, our career, our passion. We're constantly reading, consulting. I mean, we put our hearts and souls into it. When things don't go right, yeah, it stinks. Just like it stinks when you lose a game. But you move on to the next day and do your thing."

And continue to search for answers.

"There are a lot of theories (for the high rate of injury), but that's exactly what they are -- theories," Falsone says. "You just really have to look at each individual. We try to focus our program a lot on prevention. When that doesn't work, we have to look at each individual and try to figure out what could have led to this. Because you never have the answer.

"The million-dollar question is why injury happens. If you could answer that, you'd be a billionaire. My phrase is, you know, sometimes physics happen. These guys are going at forces and doing moves that the average body doesn't have to do. Everything is not preventable, no matter how hard you try."

Lately, though, there have been fewer injuries and more smiles on the Dodgers, particularly regarding Ramirez, the power-hitting shortstop who hardly played in the first half because of repetitive leg injuries. He and Cuban rookie Yasiel Puig have ignited the previously sagging offense and led a turnaround, with the team winning 26 of 32 games to move into first place with a 56-48 record.

With an accompanying improvement in the starting pitching and the bullpen, the Dodgers are looking like a team that can win in the playoffs.